


In Your Clothes

by DreamsOfSleep



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Dad!Nick, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Married Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:29:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: Snapshots of Ness at different points in their relationship.





	1. The Curious Case of the Missing Hoodies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newgirlystuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newgirlystuff/gifts).



> For newgirlystuff and the anon on Tumblr that wanted some romantic Ness. I took a break from writing angst for my regular fics to write some Ness fluff and smut just for you. Enjoy!
> 
> Inspired by [this Tumblr post.](http://newgirlystuff.tumblr.com/post/149497990342/they-are-both-so-so-pretty-but-zooeys-smile-has) I was saving this to post after S6 actually started, but it feels like the Ness fandom really needed this after the release of those S6 Reagan spoilers. Keep the faith, roomfriends! Jess is the type of girl Nick would come back for.

His hoodies kept mysteriously disappearing in the loft so Nick had to put on his Julius Pepperwood hat to flush out the person with sticky fingers in Apartment 4D. 

His primary suspect was Winston since they only started disappearing after Winston moved back in. Schmidt might hate his clothes ( _“You dress like an overgrown toddler, Nicholas!”_ ) but he would mainly stare at him and sigh in disappointment when they were hanging out together or he would place those fancy suit catalogs in Nick’s room for him to conveniently stumble upon. Schmidt was always hoping his good taste would rub off on him through sheer exposure but Schmidt was never one to outright steal or destroy his clothes no matter how much he complained about his fashion sense or lack thereof. He didn’t really know Jess that well but she was always going on about the importance of honesty and feelings in her teacher voice so, unless she had an entire secret double life as a kleptomaniac, that ruled her out too. That left Winston. Stealing his clothes seemed like something Winston would think was a hilarious prank. Nick had been friends with Winston forever but he never understood his sense of humor. 

Nick spent two weeks tailing Winston, but all Winston did the entire time Nick was spying on him were normal Winston things. He gave a half-hearted look through the job listings every morning. He went to his internship. He hung out with Shelby. He killed time by writing interesting lies about himself on his Wikipedia page and watching popular outdated YouTube videos from two years ago. He worked on the same 50-piece jigsaw puzzle in his room (badly) for five straight days ( _The corner pieces, man! Use the damn corner pieces!_ ). He watched TV out in the living room and told Nick to stop staring at him so much because it was creeping him out. Winston just wouldn’t break. Maybe Winston became a freakishly good actor in Latvia but Nick couldn’t keep missing work to follow Winston around on his adjusted sleep schedule so he let it go. _You win this round, Bishop._

\---

Nick had been so focused on tracking Winston that he didn’t realize Jess was the culprit until they had one of their loft movie nights.

Whenever everyone in the loft was hanging out in the living room, Nick always sat in the corner of the couch in the place he dubbed “his” spot. Jess said the best spot to see the TV was right in the middle of the couch next to him. She always inserted herself in there regardless of who else happened to be sitting there so all the guys just ended up letting her have that seat. It was one of those unspoken loft things. They were watching “Die Hard” since Jess said she had never seen that before and that was unacceptable in the loft. She had just eaten that big bowl of ice cream and she kept fidgeting next to him in her thin cotton pajamas rubbing her hands against her arms like she was cold. She was always in motion. It was like she had electricity running through her body at all times so she could never stay still. It used to annoy him a lot when she first moved in, but he had gotten used to it. It didn’t even faze him at all now. It just became part of the background noise in his life. It would probably freak him out now if she wasn’t a bouncing bundle of sunshine next to him; that would mean something was really wrong. 

After a while, she got up and walked into the dining room. The couch dipped as she sat back down next to him again. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw she was now wearing his blue hoodie, his favorite one that he had left hanging on the back of one of the dining room chairs. He ended up staring at her trying to figure her out instead of watching the movie, but she just kept staring straight ahead at the screen like it wasn’t unusual for her to do that, like it was entirely normal for her to be wearing his clothes. He turned back to the screen but he couldn’t focus on the rest of the movie. He kept thinking about her sitting there next to him wrapped up in his hoodie.

\---

He started noticing it more and more. Any time she was cold in the loft or she had to run out for a quick errand, she would grab one of his hoodies to wear. She had her own sweaters and jackets, fancy girly things that were way nicer than any of his ratty, well-worn hoodies, so he couldn’t figure out why she kept stealing them. He noticed she never stole any of Schmidt’s or Winston’s clothes though so he didn’t know what that was about.

She wasn’t really “stealing” them, per se. It was more like extended borrowing. She would wear one of his hoodies for a couple of weeks before throwing it in with her laundry. She would wash it all nice and clean with her good laundry soap and not the cheapo kind he bought on sale that made his skin itch. She would sneak it back into his room when he left for work and then take a different one. He didn’t know how to bring it up to her so he let it go. He chalked it up to Jess being Jess. He didn’t know why he kept letting her do it. He didn’t know why he liked it. 

…Scratch that. He knew why but he also knew that he could never ever tell her. 


	2. Seduction Scenario

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in S2, Ep 17: "Parking Spot"

Jess had worn his favorite blue hoodie trying to seduce him for that parking spot. It had worked far better than she ever knew, especially when she told him she didn’t have anything on underneath. _Nothing separating her from his hoodie but the thinnest whisper of air against her skin._

That had turned him on in the worst way. It had taken all his self-control not to pull her into him right then. He had wanted to wrap his body around hers and press his mouth to hers, kiss her hard to let out all those feelings for her he had to keep locked down within himself whenever he was around her. It felt like she had belonged to him already, even though they had only kissed once.

For a brief moment, he had been able to imagine what it would be like if she were actually his girlfriend and she would surprise him in his bed after he came home late from working at the bar dressed in just his hoodie and nothing else. 


	3. What's Mine Is Yours

Then they were actually dating and it was even better than he ever dreamed it would be. He got to put his hands all over her whenever he wanted, just like he had always wanted to. He got to show her how much he loved her every day. They spent days tangled up in each other and at night he got to curl up with her, have her fit soft and warm and perfect next to him, listen to her gentle breathing, feel her heartbeat against his skin.

She would always wear his shirt when she got up to get ready to start her day. She would always try to be quiet so he could sleep in, but he liked watching her get ready in the morning. It was like seeing the secret version of Jess before she made herself ready to face the world. She would lean in to kiss him goodbye every morning. Sometimes he would pull her back to bed just to spend those few extra minutes cuddling with her, sleepy and warm, before she had to leave for work. 

She would lounge in bed with him on lazy weekend mornings wearing just his shirt and nothing else. He would pull her close to run his hands along her long bare legs or trace the shape of her underneath his clothes and it felt wonderfully, overwhelmingly domestic. _She really belongs to me,_ he would marvel.

\---

He took her out on fancy formal dates where they would get all dressed up. 

He would sit on the edge of her bed and watch her get ready. She would riffle through her closet and hold dresses against herself, ask for his opinion on what she should wear. He would tell her she looked good in everything because it was true. 

He would wear a suit because he didn’t want to look like an unemployed bum next to her. He needed to look like someone who deserved her, Nick Miller playing the role of the perfect boyfriend Jess deserved. She would always loop his tie around his neck and tie it for him and he imagined a distant future where she would do that as his wife.

\---

When they had their date nights, he got to do the “boyfriend” thing and drape his coat over her shoulders when she got cold. He liked the feel of her hand warm in his as they walked down the street. He would put his hand on the small of her back because he could, because she was his. 

\---

In the fall, Jess knit him a scarf when it got chilly outside. He never wore scarves but he wore hers because she made it for him and that way he always got to keep a piece of her with him even when she wasn’t around. 

\---

In the winter, he took Jess to Chicago to introduce her to his family as his girlfriend.

Nick never really liked the holidays before he met Jess, but she loved Christmas and got excited about everything like a little kid, so he caught her infectious enthusiasm. He was actually excited to go home to Chicago for once. He was looking forward to showing Jess off to his family as _his_. He loved being able to call Jess his girlfriend. He would say it really casually like it was normal, like it wasn’t a big deal at all, but he knew it was a miracle and the corners of his mouth would always turn up in an irrepressible smile whenever he got the chance to say the words.

It made his Ma really happy when he finally made it home for Christmas this year instead of staying behind in LA so Jess got girlfriend bonus points for making that happen. Every year, he went through the motions of buying his plane ticket home and assuring his Ma that he would wake up early enough to make it through airport security and make it on to his flight on time, but he usually ended up missing his flight accidentally-on-purpose. The first time he missed his flight, it really _was_ an accident. But every year after that it just got easier and easier to repeat that pattern. Stay in his life in LA, as lonely as it was to spend Christmas all by himself, and not go back home if he could avoid it. He didn’t like disappointing his Ma, but he didn’t really like going back home because it was loud and messy and chaotic and he usually ended up sitting in the corner by himself wishing he were anywhere else. He loved his family but he could only take them in small doses. He was glad Jess was there next to him this time holding his hand so he wouldn’t have to be alone, just like that time she was there when he had to go home for his dad’s funeral. 

She suffered through all his loud, obnoxious relatives and took all their nosy, invasive, frequently offensive questions into her personal life in good stride. She helped his Ma cook in the kitchen and helped him wrangle all his little cousins for dinner. She sat through a marathon of family game night where his cousin Bob and his little brother Jamie almost got in a fist fight during one particularly heated round of Pictionary.

When she saw he was getting stressed out from spending too much time around his family, she snuck him outside to get plastered on spiked egg nog. They sat on the back stoop of his childhood home and shared embarrassing stories about their painful, awkward adolescences. They made each other laugh until they cried, sitting loose-limbed and comfortable leaning into each other’s bodies.

It was really the best Christmas he had had in a long time.

\---

At night, they bundled up in their winter coats and went walking through the neighborhood looking at all the houses all decked out for the holidays. Multicolored strands of lights illuminated the night outlining the vague shapes of trees and buildings. Glow-in-the-dark Santas and reindeer and snowmen stood festive guard on people’s front lawns. They could peer into the warm glow of people’s windows and see their Christmas trees all set up with presents underneath. Everything was bright and cozy and perfect inside of these houses like some Norman Rockwell fantasy. 

Nick imagined what it might be like if he moved out of the loft one day with Jess into a house like one of these, a house of their own. They would set up their own Christmas tree on the first day of December (a real one and not one of those plastic-y fake ones) and he would help Jess decorate it with tinsel and ornaments. He would hang Christmas lights on their roof and they would set up their front yard to look like Santa's village with a fancy red sleigh and light-up reindeer. They would open presents on Christmas morning in their pajamas and afterwards they would have French toast with powdered sugar and maple syrup sitting at the kitchen table he built for her. They would spend the day snuggled up together on their couch drinking hot chocolate while they watched the snow fall outside the big picture windows in their living room. An image of a perfect Christmas future that was so real he could almost reach out and touch it.


	4. Broken Up (Division of Assets)

For Nick, it really hit home that they were broken up when he had to clean out his room and box up all of her stuff. _No more Jess things in his room,_ he sighed sadly to himself. _No more Jess._

They stood in the hallway with all the detritus of their past relationship packed into cardboard boxes.

“Do you want your hoodie back?” she asked in a small voice. She was still wearing it. She pulled at the sleeves, twisting the fabric in her hands, looking down at her feet.

He gave her a sad smile. “Nah, Jess, you keep it.” 

She looked up and smiled gratefully back at him.

They exchanged boxes and it was over, just like that. Back to their separate lives.

\---

And even though they were broken up, seeing her wearing his hoodie around the loft still made him smile every time he saw her in it. Their breakup was painful but seeing her wrapped up in his clothes still made it feel like a part of her would always belong to him and she would always have him with her if she ever needed him.


	5. Newlyweds

They had just moved into their new house so Nick was still getting used to the fact that he could be alone with Jess whenever he wanted.

They had just gotten married and were still in that honeymoon phase so it was only natural that they wanted each other constantly, multiple times a day. They were making up for all that lost time away from each other. That desire for her that had always been a constant in his life had only been tamped down temporarily in the time they were apart, but it was allowed to flare up now whenever he was near her. The best thing in the entire world was being able to pull her to him, wrap his entire self around hers and feel happiness radiating through her whole body, feel how much she wanted him back. He took full advantage of that whenever he could.

The more he was with her, the more he wanted her.

It was a good thing they moved out and got their own place because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They were even more disgustingly, nauseatingly into each other than they had been the first time they got together after they came back from Mexico, and having roommates would have been doubly awkward this time around. 

He loved coming home to her. Sometimes she would launch herself at him before he even got the front door closed all the way, tearing at his clothes because she had been thinking about him all day. _I missed you, Nick,_ she would whisper to him and he could hear everything she didn’t say. He would press his hand to her heart so she would know he heard her, that he felt it too. 

She liked to surprise him in different places in their new house in various states of undress. He especially loved when he would find her wearing different articles of his clothing. He missed her doing that when they broke up, seeing her all wrapped up in his things, their lives entwined with each other just as they should be. He hated pretending they were “just friends” after they broke up when she was and will always be the most important person in his life. It never made sense not to share everything with her.

\---

_“Why, Mr. Miller, I do believe you have caught me indisposed,” she said in her Southern belle voice, the back of her hand thrown dramatically over her forehead. Her body is draped across their bed with her long raven hair spread out around her. She is wearing just his blue hoodie and nothing else._

_He leans over her so their faces are close together. He pins her wrists above her head. “Mrs. Miller, I do believe you’re right,” he says to her in a raspy whisper._

_“Don’t you want to know what I’m wearing under here?” she purrs._

_“Sure…”_

_“An invisible shirt.” She presses her lips together. His laughter vibrates through her body and she thinks about hearing that sound for the rest of their lives together, about making him happy. She pushes herself forward slightly to press a kiss to his mouth._

_His hands disappear under the hoodie to skim across the skin of her stomach, teasing her, making her press up into him craving more of his touch. He drags down the zipper of the hoodie slowly to reveal her body to him. He kisses her neck and down her front._

_“How very improper, Mr. Miller. This will be in all the papers,” she murmurs to him._

_He looks up at her and grins wolfishly. “Good. I want everyone to know you’re mine.”_

_He drops kisses down the length of her. She feels the trails of heat they leave behind, that building hunger for him. She opens up under him and he buries his face between her thighs. Her hands run through his hair the way she knows he likes. His hands on her hips keep her close to him as he traces shapes against her with his tongue, making her lose her mind in the best possible way. He gets her all worked up, her breath hitching, pulling at the strands of his hair when she’s close. He never gets tired of hearing her call out his name in breathless amazement, his favorite sound in the entire world. They never have to be quiet anymore because they are in their own house and they can christen any room they want as loud as they want. He loves learning all the different pitches and octaves of her._

_Afterwards, he lies next to her on the bed listening to her catch her breath. He smiles looking at her disheveled face. Her eyes are closed. His hand reaches out to stroke her cheek and she opens them. She smiles back at him and leans in to kiss him. She moves to straddle him on the bed to show him how much she loves him back._

\---

Sometimes he’ll wake her up in the middle of the night to tell her he loves her just because he’s feeling it then and he doesn’t have to keep it inside anymore, hidden away. He spent all those years apart from her and he never wants to forget to tell her that again because he remembers all the times he wanted to but couldn’t.

They had to lose each other to find their way back to each other again. He already knows what it’s like to lose her, so this time he’ll make sure he keeps her. He knows now it was never about changing himself to become someone else, someone he wasn’t. It was about becoming the best version of himself, seeing that he was strong enough to fight for the life he wanted because loving her made him strong enough and not to run from it, not to run from love. 

Forever is a long time, but he wants it with her, wants a life where he gets to come home to her every day and he gets to call her his wife, _his wife,_ and how that meant sharing everything, the good stuff and the bad stuff too. Love isn’t just about sex and attraction and passion. That’s certainly part of it, but not all of it, and not even the best part about it. It’s also about respect and affection and intimacy and about someone wanting you, every part of you, even the parts of you that you couldn’t love yourself. Love is about letting yourself be vulnerable and giving your complete trust to another person and not shutting yourself off from them when you’re angry or hurt or scared. He knows now that loving someone doesn’t mean you had to be perfect, but you had to make that choice to love that person every single day. You couldn’t be lazy with it. You had to learn to make time for each other and not take each other for granted. It’s not just about saying the words but living them too.

\---

_He sneaks up behind her to wrap his arms around her when she is cooking breakfast at the stove. He feels her pleased hum radiating through her body. “Hey, Jess, I love you,” he whispers to her._

_She turns to him so she can look into his eyes. Her hair is a mess and she doesn’t have a stitch of makeup on but she’s beautiful to him like this. Her smile is soft. She cups his cheeks with her hands. “I know. You show me all the time.” She stands on her tiptoes to kiss him. “I love you too.”_


	6. Trust Exercise

They’ve been married a few years now, and every year that passes, he falls more and more in love with her every day. He didn’t think it was possible, but he's probably more in love with her now than he has ever been before.

\---

Jess has always been such an integral part of his life, and now he doesn’t have to be afraid that he’ll lose her, that one day he’ll come home and she won’t be there. He used to be afraid of it all the time, the first time they were together and even after they got back together and got married, but she’s helped him work through it. 

He can turn to her now and talk to her about anything, all his fears and hopes and dreams, without holding anything back. The first time they were together, he tried to be more open with her, more honest, but there was still a wall there. He was trying so hard to be the perfect boyfriend she deserved, and he thought if he could play that role well enough he could pretend he wasn't still broken inside. He didn't want her to love that version of him. _He hated that guy._ He wanted her to love this other guy he was trying to be. The type of guy who wasn't afraid of everything. Someone that could run off to Mexico with her and do big romantic things for her, like rent out a whole movie theater to surprise her on her birthday. She deserved to love someone good like that.

She already helped him deal with his cancer scare and his dead dad, and he didn't want her to have to keep rescuing him. He couldn't do that to her. He shouldn’t have done that to her when they were just friends, and he especially couldn’t do that to her now that she was his girlfriend. All of those things were supposed to be his problems, not hers. So every time she got close to seeing more of that real version of him, the damaged, broken person he really was, he would lash out at her and push her away. He pretended he was angry about her changing him when what he really meant was, _You don't want to see those things, Jess. You don’t want to know those things about me. You don't want to love that guy._ He was broken, but he didn't want it to be her job to fix him.

His entire life he had been shoving all the bad, broken things in his life into a box. He was going to deal with all of it, he really was, but every time he opened it, he would get overwhelmed faced with all the monumental failures of his life. Everyone was always trying to get him to talk about how he _felt_ , but he never wanted to talk about that stuff out loud, not to anyone. Talking about all your real thoughts and feelings out loud made the bad stuff real, into things that could hurt the people around you, and it made the good stuff, the stuff you really hoped for, into concrete things the world could take from you, things that you could lose. He wanted to keep everything in his head entirely separate from his real life, just shove it way down deep inside himself where no one would ever find it. If he never talked about it, it just didn't exist. If it didn't exist, he didn't have to worry about all the bad stuff hurting anyone, and he never ever had to get his heart broken or let anyone down by chasing impossible dreams or hoping for a good future that could never be real.

A few days after Jess told her she loved him for the first time, he made sure she was gone from the loft, and then he took everything out from his box, dumped it all out on his bed, and just stared at it. _This is who he was. Why should Jess love someone like him?_ He wanted to show her he could fix his own life. He wanted to fancy-fix himself the way he fancy-fixed everything in the loft. But if he was being brutally honest with himself, he didn't think he could. He might always just be this broken. It was a painful truth he didn’t want to deal with, so he didn’t. He put everything back into his box and shoved it into the far back corner of his closet. He decided he was just going to live in the present with her. The present was all bright and shiny and happy and she loved him here. _She loved him._ As long as they stayed in the present, everything would work out. He said that over and over to himself to make it true. He only wanted to bring good things into her life, so he didn’t tell Jess about all the bad things that kept him up at night, all the bad things that still lived inside of him. He gave her Perfect Boyfriend Nick to love who did sweet boyfriend-y things for her and told her soft, tender feelings about how much he was in love with her and all the things he loved about the world because she was in his life. The only things that existed were these good fictions that Perfect Boyfriend Nick created for Jess. _Fancy-fixed._

But like everything he fancy-fixed, it was just a band-aid to all the real problems in his life that he never dealt with. All those problems were slowly eating him up inside, keeping him from becoming the person he was meant to be. It made him stuck in neutral in his life, paralyzed by indecision, afraid that any choice he made in his life would be the wrong one. And now it wasn’t just him he had to be worried about hurting. Every decision he made in his life was even more important now because Jess was in his life. He was trying to protect her from himself by keeping everything inside, never sharing any of the bad stuff with her, but it was only after they broke up that he realized that he was still hurting her by not letting her love him, the real him. He was lying to her about who he was. He trusted her more than anyone else in the entire world, and yet he only let her love a small part of himself, that good part of himself he deemed worthy of her love. But what kind of love is that? Loving someone only when it's easy, a partial love, a conditional love. It's a bastardization of love when you can only love one part of a person and not all of them. But he hadn’t seen it then.

He was so happy living in the present with her, and he didn't want to ruin it by thinking about the future, or at least not out loud anyway. He actually thought about it all the time, but he couldn't tell her about it, because he knew he would inevitably let her down. He didn't know how to make any of those imaginary happy futures in his head true, so he just wanted to live in the happy _now_ when they were together and the only thing that mattered was that they were in love with each other. He didn't know how to get her the rest of it, promise her forever, and then she was asking him for _more_ , and he knew he had to let her go as painful as it was. He thought that what they had was the best he could ever give her, and he knew it wasn't enough, not for someone like her. God, how he wanted to be able to turn to her and say, _'I think about it, Jess. I think about it all the time.'_ But he couldn't because then he would also have to tell her, _'You fell in love with the wrong guy, Jess. I can't be the guy you think I am, the guy you need me to be.'_

He looked at her across the burned bed with her sad disappointment face on, and it shattered the illusion of their perfect, happy life together that he had worked so hard to build. In that moment, he could see their entire future life together from where they currently were. _A life filled with disappointment for her. A life where he was always letting her down. A life where they were never on the same side, where they would grow to resent each other, where they would sleep on opposite sides of the bed, and she would never let him touch her. They would just lie there next to each other, two people that were supposed to be in a relationship but were worlds apart from one another, staying together because they both remembered how it was, both of them unable to leave, because they would still be trying to love the ghost of each other, trying to remember what happiness felt like._ He saw that entire bleak future play out in his head, and he couldn't tell her about any of it. So he let her believe he never thought about a future life with her at all. He didn't fight for her. He let her go.

But he couldn't let go of her completely. He just reset the clock on their relationship. _Back to 'just friends.'_ He needed to keep her there next to him to figure out how he had screwed it all up. He knew it would haunt him for the rest of his life if he didn't figure that out, even if they never got back together, even if she never belonged to him again. He loved her more than he ever loved anyone, and he still couldn't make it work. And if it wasn't going to work out with Jess, it wasn't going to work out with anyone. 

He needed to lose her to figure out the important things in his life. He hadn’t been ready for her then. He kept trying to be who he thought she wanted him to be, instead of just being himself. Not some perfect version of himself, but the best version of himself. Someone who could own his past but still claim the life he wanted, claim the future he wanted, and not be defined by his history. Losing Jess was devastating, the most painful experience he ever had to go through in his entire life, but afterwards he was finally able to face himself. He was done hiding from the world and running from his problems, running from himself. And because she had loved him, he was able to put the pieces of himself back together again and make himself whole. And when he was ready for her again, she was the one that came after him. _She came back for him._ She just wanted to love him, share a life with him, be a part of his. And not just in the _now_ but through everything. _An entire future with their lives entwined._

\---

The first time he had been in a relationship with Jess, he had still isolating been himself from her, keeping parts of himself hidden from her. He had said he was ‘all in’ but he hadn’t been, not really. It was something nice to say in the moment, but he hadn't fully understood what that meant back then. He had thought that dealing with his life was something he had to do alone, that growing up and being an independent, fully-functional adult meant dealing with all those messy thoughts and feelings all by yourself. But he knows now that it’s okay to ask for help, to admit you’re not okay, to admit you need someone else, to let someone in. It’s not being weak, less of a man, it’s just being human. And if you love someone, you let them help you, you let them love you, all of you. _All in._ Everyone needs somebody, and if you’re really lucky, you can find someone that sees the broken parts of you and still loves you in spite of them all.

Jess is that person for him. She’s not only his wife, she’s his better half. She always helps him see the good in himself when he can’t. One of his favorite parts of being with her is just lying in bed next to her and talking to her. He tells her about his day, mundane stuff that most people would probably find boring, but she always listens to really intently like all of it is really important. She lets him unleash all the crazy thoughts in his head, indulges the wild anarchy of his imagination and never judges him for it. He tells her dreams he has about being an astronaut, about traveling through time, about past lives he thinks he has lived. Late at night when he can’t sleep, he’ll tell her about the dark stuff that lives inside of him, about his dad, about hating himself, about thinking he’s going to screw up their kids, about panic attacks he gets. Shit about himself he’s never told another living person, another living soul. Stuff that he would never have been able to tell anyone before he met her. She knows everything about him now. She holds all his secrets safe inside of her, so he doesn't have to carry them alone.

He knows all her secrets too. He’s learned about all the things she’s afraid of. _Enclosed spaces, her pathological need to be liked, not being a good enough mom by trying to juggle a career and children at the same time, him being bored of her like Spencer was, about divorce, about broken homes, broken families._ He thinks the people who seem the strongest and who are always focused on taking care of everyone else around them often forget to take care of themselves. But he can be her second person too. He’ll be there to hold her hand when she just _can’t_ anymore, to be her shelter from the world when she’s given it everything she has, and it’s still not enough. He can make her strong with his love too.

They’ve earned that trust in each other living next to each other every single day. The phrase ‘I love you’ has only taken on new and deeper meaning for them as their relationship has grown and matured. Every time he says the words, he thinks about the fact that they don’t just mean ‘I love you now’ when things are good, but it’s a promise to love one another even when things aren’t good. To live every joy and sorrow in his life with her by his side. It’s the promise of a future together with her far down the road years from now, loving her fiercely even when they are old and gray. 

\---

He doesn’t really get it when other guys complain about their wives. He loved being married but especially being married to her. He loved knowing that no matter how much life sucks out in the real world, he can come home and hug her to him, and she just makes everything okay again. When he thinks of happiness, that’s what he thinks about.

He's heard some guys complain about their wives after only being married to them a year. _A year?_ He barely got to know Jess that first year they were together. All this time he has spent with her and he just wanted more of it. There isn't enough time in the universe to learn everything he wants to know about her, to share all the experiences life has to offer with her.

\---

Everything is even better now than it was when they first started their relationship. There’s always been passion between them, but in the back of his mind, he was worried that things might fizzle out eventually, that it might be something that just happens in all marriages, no matter how much you fought it.

He’s heard guys complain about the lack of sex after marriage, but he wasn’t afraid of that as much as losing intimacy with her after marriage. Sex has always been more than just a physical act between them. If it were just about that, he could go out and find that anywhere, with any other woman. But Jess is the only woman that he feels this intense emotional connection with during sex. The first time he met her, he felt an immediate physical attraction to her, but he thought it was just a passing phase, a red-blooded male reacting to a pretty girl in a sundress. But his body was already telling him back then, _'Now this girl, this girl is special. This girl is going to change your life.'_ And the more he got to know her, the more she made his way under his skin, the more his physical attraction to her became a physical need to touch her, to mirror that emotional closeness he felt with her with his body. _To sit close to her so she would put her head on his shoulder, to place his hand on the small of her back, to graze her skin with his fingers._ And later when he could no longer stand it, _to pull her to him, to kiss her senseless, to wrap his body around hers so they are touching in as many places as humanly possible._ Their entire relationship has been built on the language of physical touch, and he never wanted to lose that. He never wanted them to end up as one of those couples that didn’t even touch, where it was normal to go months without sex, to have physical intimacy be a chore instead of another way to express their love for one another. He never wanted them to become strangers to each other in their relationship when they had both fought so hard to find their way back to each other. 

But he didn't need to worry about that because she always makes time for him. They always make time for each other because it’s important to both of them, and neither of them ever wants to forget why they are together.

\---

Sex with her is probably better now than it's ever been. There is this whole other dimension to it now. He gets to relive every 'I love you' and all the memories of being with her every time they are joined together, a whole history of them that only they know. It's easy to fall into a rut after you've been with someone for a while, but it's never boring with her. He's explored every inch of her, but he always finds something new and intriguing about her body that makes him fall in love with her all over again. Happiness is...the lovely poetry of her, the way she moves, the sound of her laughter, the way his hand fits against the curve of her hip, the feel of her skin under his palms, the light in her eyes as she leans in to kiss him. _Her._

\---

_He’s sitting in the armchair in their bedroom, and she is standing in front of him with his hands on her hips. His fingers lightly stroke her sides, and she sees his desire for her flash in his eyes. He reaches out to undress her, but she steps back so he can’t._

_“No touching, Mr. Miller.”_

_He raises an eyebrow at her. She leans in, running her hands up his thighs. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Miller is going to take good care of you,” she purrs into his ear._

_She undresses slowly for him, the way she knows he likes. She does a sexy striptease just for him. She feels his eyes burning into her. She runs her hands over her body and imagines they are his. She knows he wants to touch her, but he's being patient. He keeps his hands to himself and lets her play her games. Nothing makes her feel sexier than being desired by him._

_When she is bare before him, she reaches out to undress him. She unbuttons his shirt and runs her hands along his chest. She presses her hand to his chest to feel his heart beating strong and true. She can’t resist leaning in to kiss him lightly on the lips. He pushes forward to deepen the kiss, chasing her mouth, but she moves away from him again._

_“Don’t tease me, Jessica,” he growls at her. His voice, gravelly and low, sends delicious shivers down her spine._

_“But it’s so fun, Nick…” Her wicked grin turns him on even more._

_She lets him grab her by the waist and pull her close. She straddles him on the chair, and he picks her up and brings her to their bed, laying her down on the bedspread. She feels the delicious pressure of his body on hers. He leans in to kiss her deeply on the mouth, and she flips them over so she is on top. She pins his wrists to the bed. “No more touching, Mr. Miller.”_

_She ties his wrists to the bedposts with a few of his silk ties. “Are you okay, Nick?” She looks into his face in concern. “Not too tight?”_

_“I’m alright, honey,” he murmurs to her. He’s calm because it’s Jess, and he trusts her. He closes his eyes and breathes out. He lets go of his anxiety of not being in control, relaxes into it._

_She’s the one that touches him this time. She alternates touches and kisses, feather light down his body. She uses her magic hands, her magic mouth on him. He feels the desire for her burning through him, the exquisite agony of wanting her. The only thing he wants in the entire world at that moment is to be able to touch her. His body is right on the edge of pain, that good space where everything is exceedingly bright and sharp, right before it all becomes too much._

_This isn't something he ever thought he would be into, but he knows Jess really likes this game of cat and mouse, likes to make him feel good this way, so he indulges her. He’s never been as completely comfortable or at ease with someone as he is with her, so it makes him open to things he normally wouldn't be. He's always been a pretty conservative guy in the bedroom, but he trusts Jess more than anyone else he's ever been with, so he liked trying new things with her. She always makes him feel safe; she always takes care of him. It felt good to hand over control to her, let her lead him. He doesn't feel trapped; he feels free._

_His mind glides along the pleasurable sensations she creates for him. He feels that building anticipation towards the moment when they can finally be joined together._

_When she unties his wrists and finally lets him touch her, his hands are all over her, pulling her close to him the way he always wants to be. He pulls their hips together and pushes up into her. He hears her gasp of pleasure. His fingers tangle in her hair, and he presses their foreheads together. They gaze intensely into each other’s eyes and feel everything together as they fall over the edge with each other._

\---

_Afterwards, she lies curled up against his chest, listening to his heart beat. The warmth of his arms encircle her, holding her to him. She taps his shoulders once with her hands, and he opens his arms, so she can lie on her back next to him. He turns to his side, so he can curl up against her. She strokes his cheek affectionately and leans in to kiss him softly._

_“Was that good for you, Nick?” she asks shyly._

_“The best, Jess,” he said, nuzzling into her neck._

_“Love you, honey,” he mumbles sleepily against her._

_“Love you more,” she whispers back. She feels him smile against her skin._


	7. Missing My Better Half

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA Me Without You

Jess has gone away to Asia to attend an international teaching conference for three months. 

It was such a great opportunity for her that Nick didn’t want her to miss it. But it was three months before the end of the school year and they didn’t want to have to pull the kids out of school so Nick chose to stay behind in LA with their kids Ben and Charlie while Jess took the trip on her own. 

It will have been the farthest they have ever been away from each other and the longest time they have ever spent apart since they have been married. 

===

Nick remembers the night Jess had rushed home to tell him the good news. There had only been three open slots in the program. She had applied on a whim and didn’t think she would ever get in. She had shrugged good-naturedly when she received the thin envelope: the standard form rejection letter she expected to get. But then someone had dropped out of the program at the last minute and they sent her the big envelope.

They had sat down at their kitchen table and tried to figure out a way to make it work, but there was just no good way for Nick and the kids to be able to go with her. She would either have to go alone or give up her spot in the program.

\---

Jess tried to be optimistic about it. She framed it positively by saying it was good for couples to have space away from each other. Nick couldn’t help frowning at that. He didn’t want to have space from her. He had “space” from her for three years and that was more than enough for him. The word _co-dependent_ runs through his head, but he pushes it away. It’s an ugly word. All he knows is that he’s happiest when Jess is next to him. Why would he need time away from her? As far as he is concerned, one of the only reasons he likes being away from her is knowing how happy he’ll be once he gets to come home and see her again.

But he worried that maybe Jess needed space away from him. Maybe he was smothering her. They’ve been married for a long time and maybe she doesn’t feel like her own person anymore, Jessica Day disappearing into her role as “Nick’s wife” or “Charlie and Ben’s mother” and not a person in her own right. Either he or one of the kids is always hanging on to her when maybe she just needed time by herself to recharge. He couldn’t help thinking about the first time they had moved in together too quickly and she had to lie to him and go book a hotel room to be alone. 

\---

Her eyes were slightly anxious waiting for his response, wanting to know what he thought because she cared about that most of all. He knew Jess wouldn’t leave if he told her he didn’t want her to go, if he asked her to stay. She wouldn’t resent him for it. She would just accept it and never bring it up again. 

If this had been years ago when they had first gotten together, he probably would have done something to sabotage their relationship so she would be happy to leave him behind. He wouldn’t have wanted to break up but he had seen the world entirely in black and white back then. He had thought there was always an implicit choice: him against the rest of the world. He would have been afraid that if she left there was a chance that she might never come back, that she would go out into the world and find something better than the life they had together. If she did, he didn’t want to know about it. He didn’t want to be the chump waiting around for her to leave him or be the guy holding her back from the rest of her life because of some misguided loyalty to him, choosing him over happiness. So he would destroy their relationship first and take the blame for everything bad between them so she wouldn’t have to do it later. 

But he knows now that their bond is stronger than anything life could ever throw at them. Every day he reaches out to touch her heart and he can feel how it beats for him in the same way his does for her. She’ll always come home to him. That is one of the great certainties of his life.

He looked down at their hands linked together on the kitchen table, before looking back up into her eyes. He could tell she was trying to tamp down her excitement about traveling to new places, about getting to meet all those new people, about being around all those great educators and being able to make a difference out in the world. She was trying to protect his feelings like always, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and she might never get the chance to do this again. He wanted her to do it because he knew it would make her happy, even if he couldn’t be a part of it. He took her face in his hands and pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth. He pulled back slightly so she could see the sincerity in his eyes. “Go, Jess. Have fun. I’ll miss you, but Future Nick will see Future Jess in three months.” 

===

He calls Jess every morning before he drops the kids off at school. The cell reception is spotty where she is so he rarely gets her in person, but it’s still nice to hear her voice on her outgoing message.

He leaves funny anecdotes and lame dad jokes on her voicemail to make her laugh. He tells her about the kids, about all the fun stuff he has planned for them, everybody happy and accounted for so she doesn’t worry. He tells her that they miss her but they’re doing fine. It’s bending the truth a little. He knows this is just them surviving without her until she comes home and they become alive again. 

He pretends he’s having conversations with her on her voicemail, pretends the silence on the other end of the line is just her listening to him intently the way she always does when she’s there next to him. It’s not the same though because he’s just talking to the empty void and not her. He misses being able to see her face, her Jessica Day smile lighting up the entire world. He has that perpetual itch in his hands from not being able to reach out and touch her, that force of habit of always having part of his body resting against her, pulling her close to him. He hates talking to that faceless electronic box, but he still does it so she can hear his voice and know that he’s thinking about her, loving her across the infinite distance of space and time.

===

He tries to keep busy during the day. He picks up extra shifts at the bar while the kids are in school. He brainstorms for crazy things to do with them after school and on the weekends. He rearranges his schedule so he can spend more time with them, so he’ll always be there when they come home like Jess usually is.

 _Thank God for the kids._ He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if they weren’t here beside him grounding him to his life. _When did that happen?_ He doesn’t know. Being a dad used to be unimaginable to him and now he couldn’t imagine being anything else. Sometimes they’ll say or do something that reminds him of Jess and that makes him smile. He knows that change in him had something to do with Jess because he looked at her one day and he felt it, felt that yearning in his heart that he never felt with anyone else, the desire to create something good and permanent in the world that was half him and half her. He wasn't afraid of it anymore; he was ready for it, ready for the whole rest of his life. And every day when he comes home and sees them, it’s a concrete reminder of the great “why” of his life, all the reasons he has for living.

 _I love you,_ he tells them every day. _I know,_ they’ll respond back. _I love you too, Dad._ And as long as they know that, the world is right. They never have to think about it; it will always be true.

\---

They’re good kids so he doesn’t mind spoiling them while Jess is away. 

They stay up late and eat junk food and watch the ‘80s movies he grew up with: _Ghostbusters_ , _Gremlins_ , _E.T._ He hasn't seen _E.T._ in a while so he had forgotten how emotional the ending was. It probably wasn't the best idea to show the kids this movie while Jess is gone, even if it is a really good movie. He can give a good bear hug with the best of them but Jess is better at explaining how sad things are still happy things because they are part of life. That's her gift, really. He's gotten better at it over the years watching her, but she's still better at it than he could ever hope to be.

He can feel the burn of tears behind his eyes but he's biting the inside of his cheek because he doesn't want the kids to see him lose it. Ben's bottom lip quivers but he's a trooper and is able to keep it together for the most part. Charlie though, his poor, tender-hearted baby girl, is full on sobbing into his shoulder. 

"He leaves and never comes back, Papa?" she asks him through her tears. She thinks about it and asks hesitantly, "Is Mama going to come back?" 

He wipes her wet face with a Kleenex. "It's just a movie, Chuck. Mama always comes home," he says firmly. "Always."

\---

They go camping in the backyard. He shows them how to make a campfire and they eat hot dogs and s’mores for dinner. He teaches them card tricks and helps them catch fireflies and when it gets really late they tell ghost stories around the campfire until it burns down low. Charlie only wants to tell ghost stories about nice ghosts though and she and her brother get in an argument over that.

“She’s telling them wrong, Dad,” Ben grumbles.

“Relax, Ben. She can tell them that way if she wants to.”

“There can be nice ghosts,” Charlie insists, cuddled up on Nick’s lap. “Mama says ghosts can be nice.” Nick remembers all the stories he and Jess made up for Charlie when they moved into their new house. Charlie had been excited at the prospect of having her own room for the first time but the unfamiliar sounds of their new house settling at night made her afraid of sleeping by herself, afraid of the dark in a way she never was when she was still sharing her room with her brother. They made up nice backstories for all the monsters lurking in the shadows that liked to go walking about their house in the witching hour after they all went to bed so Charlie wouldn't have to be afraid of the dark. 

“Ghosts can be nice,” Nick agrees. “They’re probably just like people. Some are nice; some aren’t so nice.” 

That idea intrigues Ben. He stops pouting and gets caught up in trying to describe parallel dimensions after that.

===

This year Ben is obsessed with space travel. He has his heart set on becoming an astronaut when he grows up. Nick has secretly always wanted to be an astronaut too so he's glad his son is keeping that dream alive. He tries not to push Ben on it though since he's still so young. Kids his age are still trying to figure out who they are and can change their identity five times before breakfast. Hell, Nick didn't know who he wanted to be until he was well into his 30s, after he met Jess. He wants to let Ben explore and figure out who he is on his own without trying to live up to what Ben thinks Nick wants him to be. The last thing he wants is to become one of those overbearing parents who try to re-live their lost youth through their kids. Ben can change his mind if he wants to but Nick is always glad to see his kids discover a new passion and he tries to support and encourage them whenever he can. 

Ben shows Nick all the cool things he’s learning about space in school. Nick looks at the pictures of space shuttles and thinks they could build something like that. Nick takes the kids to the library and the Aerospace Museum so they can learn about the physics of air travel. The three of them sit on the floor in the living room drawing up blueprints and building their model rockets. Charlie makes decorative parachutes for them and writes _SS Miller_ on the side of each of them in a colorful scrawl. Nick teaches her Roman numerals so they can label all the different rockets. They place a few of Ben’s army men inside as their brave, ragtag crew of astronauts and salute each rocket before it takes its journey into The Great Beyond. “Godspeed, gentlemen. Godspeed,” Nick says solemnly before each liftoff.

\---

They set off bottle rockets in the yard until their neighbors call the cops. _Spoil sports_. Luckily, it’s just Winston that shows up.

"Cool it with the damn rockets, man," Winston says in his cop-voice. “I got over ten noise complaints from this neighborhood. They said it sounds like World War 3 out here.”

"It’s for *science*," Nick says dramatically. 

He is standing at the open front door in a makeshift labcoat with chemistry goggles on while Ben and Charlie peer out at Winston from behind his back dressed the same way, miniature versions of him with turtlefaces on.

Winston gives him a look.

"Yeah, okay," Nick concedes since he’s supposed to be the adult. He takes off his goggles. _Too much fun with science._

He muses about whether he can smooth things over with the neighbors by bringing them cookies and pastries like Jess did that one Christmas he shorted out all the lights on their street trying to one-up everyone on decorations, but he doesn't think it would have the same effect coming from him. It's a nice neighborhood but Nick thinks the people can be a bit uptight and he can't really hide the fact that he thinks that. He tries to make nice but he really doesn't have the patience for people who are fake-nice to his face and then call the cops on him behind his back. Jess is better at playing the diplomat. 

\---

Nick takes the kids back inside and makes them hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows like Jess does whenever they get bad news.

“Are we in trouble, Dad?” Charlie asks worriedly. "I think we made Uncle Winston mad." 

“Nah. Have you ever seen Uncle Winnie get mad at you? He could never be mad at you, sweetheart. He's just doing his job. Some people just can’t appreciate good science.”

He tells them the story of Galileo and a world that just wasn't ready for Big Ideas.

===

One weekend, they all get a little stir-crazy at home so Nick takes them to the beach. The weather is perfect but he can’t help wishing Jess were there next to him in her red polka-dot bikini. He tries to be chipper and upbeat for the kids, but they can tell he’s kind of bummed out by that so they don’t ask to go to the beach again.

He takes them swimming at the city’s YMCA instead. He does laps back and forth across the Olympic-sized pool, racing the kids. He likes getting lost in the rhythm of it because he forgets about missing Jess for a while. The only thing that exists then is the cool water rushing past him and that singular focus of propelling himself forward until he feels the concrete wall beneath his hands.

\---

When the weather’s nice after school, he likes to take the kids to Griffith Park. Sometimes Tran is there and they’ll walk around the well-worn paths together side by side while the kids run ahead of them.

“Jess is gone,” Nick breathes out. “Three months. Think I can make it?” Tran pats him on the back comfortingly. Nick knows he understands.

Tran is teaching the kids how to play chess. Nick isn’t very good at it so Tran keeps checkmating him, but the kids are smarter than he is. Charlie is really good at it. It’s just effortless for her. Nick watches in awe at the way her brain works out all the moves. 

Sometimes a group of guys will set up a chess tournament near the picnic tables in the park and he takes Charlie there to play. She wears Jess’s ribbon hat for luck. Nick gets a kick out of watching this little girl in a ribbon hat trounce all these adult men at chess. Sometimes she gets fidgety from sitting still for too long and loses on purpose so they can go get ice cream instead. She wishes the guys were smarter so they wouldn’t let her win so easily. Nick thinks about driving her into the city to find better players to play against; he’ll ask Jess when she comes home.

Ben is okay at chess but he would much rather be exploring the park. He tries to make friends with other people’s dogs or he searches for lizards and frogs and tries to make friends with them too. He’s like Jess and wants to make friends with everyone and everything. He can be shy around kids his own age though; he prefers animals or adults. Nick tries to encourage him to play with some of the other kids like Jess would, but he thinks he doesn’t do a very convincing job since he doesn’t really like meeting new people either. He gets paranoid about one of these kids being a bad influence on Ben, about him being bullied by these other kids for being a little left of center. Ben’s only ten, but he thinks about kids growing up too fast and it keeps him up at night. He wishes Jess were here to give him the right words to say, to calm his fears like she always does. 

Ben always seems resilient and happy though. He’s at that age where he feels invincible, wanting to climb to the top of the jungle gym or swing high enough to touch the sky. Nick wishes Ben would always see the world this way, that Jess way where the entire world welcomes you in and there isn’t anything you can’t do. 

\---

When the night sky is clear, he likes to pack the kids into the car and make the drive out to Griffith Observatory whenever he can. The kids will cuddle up sleepily next to him in their pajamas as he looks out from one of the observatory’s balconies, the city sprawled out before him with the stars above him. 

He feels close to Jess then, thinking about her looking up at the same night sky as him from somewhere far away.

===

He makes it a month before he starts unraveling. Days are easier because he can go work at the bar or the kids are around distracting him, but when he’s still for too long or the house is quiet at night, he’ll miss her again.

He’s been having trouble sleeping. He always does when she’s gone. He’ll reach out for her in the middle of the night and her side of the bed will be cold and empty when his body expects her to be there. Then he’ll remember she’s gone and the loneliness will hit him again.

It starts to happen more and more frequently. He’ll lie there awake trying to force himself to go back to sleep so he won’t be completely useless at the bar the next day, but when he can’t, he’ll get up and look for projects to do around the house. It feels like his entire life is reduced to that waiting time. 

\---

One day he breaks the toaster accidentally-on-purpose just so he has an excuse to take it apart and try to fancy-fix it. He thinks he lost some of the parts under the fridge though so he isn’t able to. After the third time he shocks himself after plugging it back in, he admits defeat and goes to the mall to buy a new one.

He’s walking past one of those shops that sells useless gadgets no one needs when he sees the metal detector in the front window. That seems like a really good idea to him right then, like the best idea in the entire world, so he goes inside and buys that.

\---

He lets the kids take turns using the metal detector to decide where they should dig. Charlie thinks there must be pirate treasure in their backyard for sure. Ben chatters on beside him about being real archaeologists like Indiana Jones.

The shovel is too heavy for Charlie to use by herself but she still digs with a garden spade because she wants to be helpful. She doesn’t get much digging done though because she spends most of her time collecting worms and beetles from the dirt into her blue beach pail and setting them free in the woods out of the path of danger.

Ben tries to keep up with Nick but he gets worn out by the end of the day, leaning over his shovel half-asleep, so Nick sends him inside with Charlie to go to bed. 

\---

The next day, Ben and Charlie peer out at him from the deck in their pajamas and bare feet. It’s early on a Saturday morning, the sun’s rays barely peeking over the horizon. Nick gives them a cheery wave from the three foot deep hole he’s currently standing in. It doesn’t look like he’s been to bed; it looks like he was just out here digging all night. Ben and Charlie exchange a look with each other but don’t say anything. Ben puts on his shoes and jumps down into the nearest pit to pick up his shovel again to help him dig. Charlie goes back inside the house and fixes them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast.

Ben is still sore from digging all day yesterday so he’s keeping a slower pace today. Sometimes when Ben thinks he isn’t looking, Nick thinks Ben has been filling the holes back in. He’s only a kid though so it’s too much for him to do all my himself and Nick is halfway across the yard again before he can make any real progress. Ben gives up after a while and just sits out on the deck and keeps him company while he continues digging. Nick gets used to the sound of Ben’s continuous background commentary about dinosaurs and spaceships and when it gets late, Ben takes a flashlight and aims it over the yard so Nick can keep digging without waking up all the neighbors by turning on the floodlights in the backyard. 

Charlie comes out of the house at regular intervals throughout the day to bring him water and cut-up fruit and crustless sandwiches dressed in Jess’s aprons. She meekly suggests that maybe he should take a break. She gets that worry line in her brow like Jess does whenever she gets anxious about something and that hurts his heart a little. He gives her a careful hug trying not to get dirt on her clothes. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Go and play. I’ll just be a little while longer,” he tells her. But she goes to sit on the deck next to her brother, coloring and watching over him. He keeps digging.

\---

He’s out there for five days. The kids get themselves up for school and check on him when they get back home, sitting on the deck and keeping him company. He hasn’t slept since Friday and he stopped going to work so they call Schmidt to come and rein him back in.

“Uh…Whatcha doing there, Nick?” he hears from the deck.

He looks up and Schmidt is there. 

“Digging,” he says like that’s the most obvious thing in the world, like it was entirely normal to be buried in the dirt up to his knees with mud all over his clothes on a Tuesday night. He blinks and looks around him like he is coming out of a trance. The entire backyard is all dug up. There used to be grass back here but now it's just a wasteland. He's surrounded by mounds of dirt and crater-sized holes. It felt really important to keep digging before this moment but he no longer remembers why; he thinks he was looking for something. He leans on his shovel and stares at the ton of scrap metal collected on the side of the yard. _Well, shit._ He was probably looking for his sanity.

“Got a little carried away?” Schmidt asks him sympathetically.

Schmidt grabs a shovel and helps him fill all the holes back in the best they can. Nick thinks about buying new grass so Jess doesn’t have to come home and see how he lost his damn mind in their backyard. He’ll plant those white roses she likes.

He goes inside the house and takes a shower, washing away five days’ worth of dirt and grime from his body. He feels the exhaustion seep in. He collapses into bed and is finally able to fall asleep. Schmidt makes the kids a good dinner and stays overnight to watch over them. It’s a sweet gesture even though Nick is pretty sure Schmidt just wants to make sure he’s got his head screwed back on right and isn't going to do something insane again like rip all the copper wiring out of the walls or something. 

\---

“Don’t tell Jess about this,” he says to Schmidt over breakfast the next morning. “I’m okay. I just got a little carried away is all, like you said. Everything’s fine now. She’ll only get worried and it’ll ruin her whole trip.”

"I don’t think I have to. Why do you think I’m here?" _Ah. So the kids didn’t rat him out._

"Talk to your wife, Nick," Schmidt says before he leaves.

After Schmidt leaves, Nick checks his phone. All those messages from Jess, worrying over him. He calls her and leaves his daily voicemail checking in, connecting back into the world. "Sorry, honey, I fell off the grid for a while. I did something stupid to the yard, but I'm going to fix it. I miss you. I love you. See you back at home soon."

He looks at the cheery construction paper numerals Charlie put on the fridge counting down the time until Jess comes home. He reaches out to trace the numbers with his fingers. _One month left._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight reference to the Jake Johnson movie ["Digging for Fire"](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3704416/) at the end.


	8. Home Is Where The Heart Is

He knows that in less than one month Jess will be home again. He doesn’t know exactly how much time is left because he’s been avoiding calendars ever since he went off the rails digging in their backyard. It feels easier just to take each day as it comes, ignore how frustratingly close and far away it is until he gets to see her again. _Jess, close enough to touch but always just out of reach._ He tries not to dwell on it too much, but when he wakes up one morning, he feels what day it is all the way down to the marrow of his bones. _Their anniversary._ A preternatural sense in him just _knows_ before he even opens his eyes.

They had talked about it when Jess was planning her trip. She fretted that she wasn’t going to make it home in time for their anniversary, but it seemed silly to him for her to cut her trip short just for one day so he convinced her that it wasn’t a problem at all and they would celebrate it when she came back home again. He’s kind of regretting that now because it’s been so long since he’s seen her in person and it’s all just hitting him painfully today. This day will never not be special to him. It’s the one day he would never forget as long as he lives. _The day she finally became his, permanent forever, not even until death do they part but into eternity._

\---

He thinks maybe today of all days, he’ll call her and he’ll actually be able to get her in person. _No such luck._ He hears the cheery prerecorded message on her voicemail that has become so familiar to him for the umpteenth time. “I know you know what day it is today, Jess,” he says to the empty void of space. He looks over at their wedding picture sitting on the nightstand. “When I woke up this morning, I was just thinking about how lucky I am to have you in my life. Not everyone gets to find their soulmate, let alone marry them, but I’m glad the universe gave me the chance to find mine.” He pauses, getting emotional thinking about her, about their marriage.

“I never regretted marrying you even for a second, Jess. I only regretted not asking you to marry me the first time you were mine.” His voice cracks slightly before he is able to pull himself back together. “I just…I really needed to tell you ‘I love you’ in person today. I’ve said that to you on every single one of our anniversaries ever since we’ve been married so I just need you to hear me say that for real and not just in a message on your answering machine. Call me if you can, even if it’s late, so I can tell you that today. I love you and I can’t wait to see you again, my beautiful wife.” 

\---

It’s a Friday at the end of the month so he’s busy doing the books, which he is grateful for today. It helps him resist the urge to keep checking his phone to see if Jess has called him back yet. He lets himself get buried under the weight of facts and figures and receipts for a few hours. When he’s done with that, he lets himself check his phone again. He’s disappointed that Jess still hasn’t called him back yet. He spins his wedding ring around on his finger and lets himself think of her. He feels that urge in him to go dig up their entire backyard again. He goes and cleans all the glassware in the bar so he doesn’t let himself get dragged into the black hole of missing her.

===

He drives the kids over to Schmidt and Cece’s house in the evening. They’re hosting a sleepover tonight for their twins Jacob and Olivia. Nick stays around to chaperone because he knows they need all the help they can get wrangling 20 rambunctious preteens running around their house hopped up on sugar and a kid’s idea of freedom.

\---

The boys mainly want to hang out playing video games in the living room. Ben tries to show Nick how to play, but he’s terrible at it. _Technologically challenged._ He never remembers what all the different buttons do and what order you have to press them in and then they switch gaming systems and you have to relearn everything again. His character always ends up blowing himself up or gets stuck in the corner jumping at the imaginary wall. It makes him feel old briefly, but he remembers he was never good at video games even when he was young. 

Schmidt slips him some cheat codes so he doesn’t completely embarrass himself. Preteen boys are a tough crowd.

\---

He checks up on Charlie at the girls’ sleepover at the other side of the house. All the girls are dressed down in their pajamas and have fluffy white bathrobes on. Some of the girls are in the corner braiding each others’ hair and painting each others’ fingers and toes with sparkly nail polish. Cece is sitting cross-legged on the floor showing some girls how to make friendship bracelets. She smiles at him when she sees him in the doorway. "Brave, Miller," she says to him jokingly. 20-year old Nick Miller definitely wouldn't be caught dead anywhere this...pink. Even 30-year old Nick Miller would be hard-pressed to enter this scary Girl World built out of entirely too much makeup and frilly lace, but the Nick Miller he is now has a little girl he loves more than anything else in the entire world so that makes him brave. Jess and Cece think it's cute how many girly things he knows how to do now because of Charlie. _He knows how to braid her hair five different ways and he knows how to take her into a store and buy her a dress and he knows to wait for her because it takes 50 tries before she finds one she likes and he knows the lyrics to all her favorite pop songs because she likes when they sing together in the car and he knows he needs to sing as loud as he can because she likes it when he belts out the words even if he thinks his voice is terrible._ Of course he would. She's his little girl; he'd do anything for her.

“Hi, Daddy!” Charlie says brightly. Her bathrobe is slightly large on her so she waves at him with one of her sleeves. “Do you want me to make you pretty?” She holds up some nail polish. She’s using her puppy dog eyes on him and he can never say no to that face. 

“Sure, Chuck, make me pretty.”

\---

He sits across from his little girl and lets her paint his fingernails electric blue. She does a careful job, slow and deliberate. The girls have all given each other makeovers the way girls do at these things. Charlie is wearing purple glitter eyeshadow and bright red lipstick and he has to resist the urge to reach over and wipe it off her face. He knows she's just having fun, messing around with her friends, but it always makes him think of her growing up too fast. He wants her to stay his little girl forever, but he knows he has to let her go out and explore the world on her own, even with all the scary, bad things in it. At least when those bad things happen to her, god forbid they ever do, she’ll know she can always come home and her dad will hug her and make everything better. He’ll make sure of that.

\---

They’ve just been sitting together sharing this quiet moment between them when Charlie says to him, “Don’t be sad, Papa.”

That catches him off guard. He’s tried really hard not to show how hard Jess’s absence has been on him around the kids, but kids always have a way of picking up on those things. He pastes on a smile for her and tries to keep his tone lighthearted. “I’m not sad, Chuck. How can I be sad when you’re here with me?” He doesn’t want her to think it’s her job to fix him. He’s sad but it’s not her fault. He’s the one that’s supposed to protect her from all the bad things in the world, not the other way around. She’s his little girl and it’s enough. 

“Not outside sad. Inside sad,” she replies. He gets what she means. Not the big, dramatic, crying kind of sad like in the movies, but the more insidious kind of sad that just hangs over your entire day and rests on your heart and in your bones.

She cups his face with her hands and looks directly into his eyes. It always freaks him out a bit when she gets this way. She’s still his daughter Charlie but it’s like she can look into the future then and it feels like she has the entire wisdom of the universe in her eyes. “Tomorrow, you’re going to be happy, Papa,” she says to him in a serious voice. 

He gives her a half-smile. “Yeah? That would be nice, Chuck.”

She gets a frustrated look on her face because she can tell he doesn’t really believe her. “You have to say it with me to make it true, Papa.”

He does because she’s his little girl and she asked him to. “Tomorrow, I’m going to be happy,” he says back to her.

She nods at him, satisfied. She turns back into her eight-year old self and presses a kiss to his forehead. She picks up her nail polish and goes back to painting his fingernails.

===

He has to go back home to sleep because 20 hyper preteens running around the house all night makes it impossible to get any shuteye. He’s been having insomnia again so he knows he has to at least try to get some sleep tonight. He hugs his kids and says goodbye to Schmidt and Cece before he leaves.

“You going to be alright, champ?” Schmidt asks him.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to be happy,” Nick responds back.

Schmidt gives him a confused smile.

Nick shrugs. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get Jess tonight so today is a lost cause, but Chuck told me something good is supposed to happen to me tomorrow.”

Schmidt hugs him again. “I hope so too. She's usually right about these things. Get some sleep, Nick. Jess will be home before you know it.”

===

He checks his messages one last time when he gets home but he still comes up empty. He tries calling her again but just gets her voicemail. _Where are you, Jess?_ He looks at the clock in the kitchen. Only an hour left. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to talk to her and tell her he loves her before it’s tomorrow and their anniversary is over. He sighs sadly to himself. He tries to convince himself that it’s silly, _she knows he loves her and it doesn’t mean anything that he missed her today_ , but it doesn’t work. He makes his way slowly up the stairs. He’s not going to get her today but at least sleep takes away some of this empty time away from her. Charlie’s words echo in his head, _“Tomorrow, you’re going to be happy.”_ He thinks she was just trying to cheer him up but it’s one of those cryptic things kids say that feels significant. Maybe that feeling means he’ll call her and be able to get her in person tomorrow and that thought cheers him up, even though he doesn’t think that will actually happen. The timing has never worked out quite right between them this entire time they have been apart.

\---

He’s walking down the hallway past his home office to their bedroom when he notices his office door is slightly ajar. He thought he closed it when he left this morning, but maybe he forgot. Maybe one of the kids went in there after they came home from school. Sometimes they like to go in there to take turns spinning around in his office chair or to crawl under his desk when they play hide-and-seek.

Something compels him to open the door to look inside the room instead of just closing it again and there she is. _Jess._ He can’t believe it’s her; he must be hallucinating. In his brain he knows there isn’t any logical reason for her to be here. She’s still on the other side of the world from him. It’s some trick of the mind that has created her out of thin air, out of all those memories he has of her because he’s been missing her so intensely today and he needed her to be here next to him. He’s frozen in the doorway just taking in the wonderful mirage of her.

She’s sitting on the edge of his desk wearing his blue hoodie and a short, black skirt that flares out from her hips. Her long legs dangle over the side of the desk and are crossed primly at the ankle. She is wearing sheer, black pantyhose and his eyes travel up the length of her, drinking her in. Her hair has the fancy waves in it spilling down over her shoulders. This version of Jess spent time doing her smoky eye makeup. He knows that always takes her forever because she’s Jess. She always stabs herself in the eye whenever she does it and lets out a stream of creative teacher swears in the bathroom that are just on the line of profanity. He doesn’t really get eye makeup but he appreciates the effort and the dark kohl always makes Jess’s eyes turn this deep cerulean blue which he likes because it reminds him of holding her hand on a Mexican beach and looking out into the deep blue ocean when their relationship was still shiny and new.

She has bright red lipstick on. It makes her lips pop with color even more than they usually do and the only thing he can think about is kissing her then.

 _God, let her be real,_ he thinks to himself. _And if she isn’t real, just let me stay here where she is until real Jess comes home to me._

She speaks to him and the beautiful sound of her voice breaks the spell he is under. “I just needed to hear my husband say he loves me in person today.”

She holds out her arms for him and he strides the few remaining steps to reach her. He wraps his arms around her and breathes her in. He pulls back from her so he can cup her face and look directly into her eyes. “I love you, Jess,” he says with all the emotion in his entire being, everything a husband can feel for a wife. He hugs her to him again just to feel her solid form against him.

“I love you too, my dear husband.”

“That I know,” he said, nuzzling into her neck.

With trepidation, he has to ask her, “Home for good or flying back out again tomorrow?” He tries to imagine driving her to the airport and sending her away again. It is entirely too painful of a thought to think about even in passing, but he’ll man up and do it if he needs to because she’s his wife and he wants her to be happy.

“Home for good. I missed you too much, Nick. I couldn’t miss our anniversary.”

“Is there anything you really wanted this year, my dear wife?”

“Just you,” she said. “To be with my husband on our anniversary. What about you? Is there anything you really wanted this year?”

“I want the same thing every year: to be able to show my wife I love her.”

His hands are on either side of her, blocking her in on the desk. Their faces are close together as they whisper love to each other. “Show me, Nick,” she whispers to him. “Show your wife how much you love her, just like you do every minute of every day when we’re together.”

She doesn’t have to ask him twice.


	9. Love Me Like You Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA Love Me Up, Buttercup

His hands run up the sheer sleek satin of her legs. He knows she got all dressed up just for him. He gets to unwrap her which is always his favorite part. Anticipation is a powerful aphrodisiac. He can feel his desire for her humming in his bloodstream, electricity running through his veins, that ravenous hunger built up for her in all this time they have been apart.

He rips down her pantyhose first. He can never resist doing that. He loves the contrast of the expensive textured silk with the smooth bare skin of her legs. She always buys the fancy kind made from luxurious high-quality fabric and not the cheap uncomfortable itchy mesh kind because she knows he likes that, likes her to have the best. 

The skirt comes down next, more gently because he doesn’t like to destroy her clothes. He’s never known a girl who wore as many skirts as her, but he likes her style. All her clothes are associated with all the good memories he has of being with her. He remembers she wore this skirt on that trip they took to the mountains. They had lain down on a blanket under the night sky and he had made love to her under all those stars and it had felt like they were the only two people on Earth. Right now, his hands are on her hips just like that night. She places her hands over his so he knows she is remembering too. 

He reaches out to bring the zipper of the hoodie down. He drags it down slowly to reveal the rest of her body to him. She is wearing a cute new lingerie set. _Fancy purple lace._ He smiles at that and she knows that he knows it’s new, that she bought it special just for him. He spends a few seconds admiring her in it, his fingers stroking along her sides softly. She was a girl made for lingerie, the intriguing allure of her that drew you in, that perfect mix of sweet and sexy that made guys fall head over heels for her when they saw her. She was an easy girl to fall in love with and he didn’t know how any guy could keep his hands off her, but she was his so he was the only guy that got to do that, the only guy that would ever get to touch her this way.

His hands run along her body. He traces the faint stretch marks along her stomach. She used to be self-conscious of them, but he told her they actually made her even more beautiful to him because she got them giving him their children and no other woman on Earth has those and that’s what he thinks about when he sees them, when he touches them, and not about the fact that she doesn’t have the same body she did when she was 30. When you’re young, you think you want someone that’s perfect when you really want someone that’s real, someone you can trust completely and who loves you honestly and unconditionally with their entire selves. It’s the soul from within that makes the body perfect. You never just fall in love with the shell of a person but the soul it’s attached to. Your soulmate is the person you want to make all those lasting memories with to sustain you into eternity. So all those wrinkles and scars you get from growing older aren’t imperfections but stories. Her skin carries all the stories of them. He knows every single inch of her and that’s what makes her so sexy to him, that’s what he’s attracted to. She gets more and more beautiful to him every year as all the new stories they live together get written into her skin.

His hands reach along her back to unhook her bra and then he is bringing the straps down her shoulders to remove it. His hands travel down her hips to drag her underwear down her legs and then she is wonderfully bare before him. His hands cup her breasts squeezing and kneading her softly. She arches up into his hands, letting out little breathy sighs of pleasure. He takes his time just touching her. She relaxes into him, melting into his hands. She loves him touching her and he’s only too willing to oblige. Sometimes it doesn’t even go anywhere. Life has a tendency to get in the way so there are days when their schedules don’t quite line up and they only get a few minutes of alone time to spend together or the kids come in to interrupt what Jess jokingly calls their “happy-sexy-fun-time,” but he still likes making her feel good this way, likes feeling close to her this way, even if nothing else happens. 

\---

He sees that spark of desire in her eyes, the equal and raw intensity of her own hunger for him that always makes him want her even more. She reaches out to undress him quickly, needing to get him bare and feel him against her skin to skin. He pulls her hips towards him to join them together. He pushes into her and makes her gasp in the best way. 

She wraps her legs around him to bring him closer to her. She tightens her hold on him and squirms against him deliciously. His thrusts push her up the desk. She has to brace herself against the wall and his hand automatically goes up to the back of her head so she doesn’t hurt herself. (A sex concussion isn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds.)

After a while, he pants out _‘Switch’_ into her ear because he doesn't want her to be uncomfortable sitting on the hard surface of the desk for too long. He turns her around so she can brace herself on the desk with her hands. He gathers her long hair and pushes it over her shoulder so he can drop kisses along her neck and down her back. His hands are covering hers, their fingers entwined. 

They’ve been together for a long time, but it’s always good with her. Everything with her is more intense than it has ever been with anyone else in his life because he knows he loves her and trusts her more than anyone else in the entire world and she loves him back in the same way. She’s his wife, his Jess, and that’s what makes it so good.

He can feel that she’s close and he calls her _Jessica_ , rasps it out low and dirty in her ear. He knows she likes that and it works better than anything else to push her over the edge. Just hearing her gasp like that does it for him, knowing he can make her feel good like that the way no one else can.

He releases into her but stays close to her afterwards, holding her against him for several long seconds just listening to her catch her breath and feeling the soft warm pulse of her against his skin before he lets her go. She turns around and throws her arms around his neck to bring his face down close to hers so she can kiss him deeply on the mouth. His hands find her waist. They fit against the familiar curves of her. When he pulls away from her to catch his own breath, his hands go up to cup her face. His fingers gently stroke her cheeks. He gazes into her eyes filled with love for him. “Happy anniversary, honey,” he whispers to her. He kisses her again gently and sweetly on the lips before he picks her up and carries her to their bedroom. He lays her down on their bed and curls up against her, spooning her into the warm cocoon of his body. Every part of him knows that this is what true happiness feels like. _His Jess back home where she belongs._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on the song [Love Me Like You Do](https://youtu.be/jL82_bzWe2Y) by Ellie Goulding


	10. Happy Anniversary (Then and Now)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this AU, Nick and Schmidt are 50/50 owners of the bar. Cece doesn't work there anymore but is running her own modeling agency.

They are curled up together in bed sharing one of their quiet moments, happy and blissful together.

Their hands are entwined and he turns them over so her hand is on top. Her wedding ring catches the light. He plays with it, spinning it around her finger. She watches him affectionately. She likes that after all these years, he still always wants to hold her hand wherever they are together. The feel of his hand in hers is intimately familiar and always reminds her of all the ways they fit together. Two imperfect halves of a perfect whole.

"What are you thinking about?" she whispers to him.

He presses a kiss to her cheek, leaning in close to her ear. "Wedding vows," he whispers back to her.

He sits up to reach behind their bed. He pulls off an envelope that had been taped behind the headboard. She sits up to get a better look at what he's holding. He wraps his arm around her bringing her close to him again before placing the envelope in her hands.

"We said no gifts this year, Nick," she teases him.

"I couldn't help it, Jess. You know how I like to spoil my wife," he grins back at her. “Go ahead and open it, honey.”

She opens the envelope and takes out two first-class plane tickets to Italy.

Her hand goes up to cover her mouth and she starts tearing up.

He cups her cheek with his hand and brushes her tears away with his thumb. “You did say I would get us to Italy one day.” Her smile is soft reliving that memory with him. Her eyes are cornflower blue in that moment, the blue of the sky on a cloudless spring day. It's the color of love in the eyes of his sunshine girl. The only proper response to that is to lean in and kiss her hard the way he knows she likes. It's the kind of kiss that reminds her of why she fell in love with him in the first place. “Thanks for believing in me, my dear wife,” he whispers against her lips.

She entwines her hand with his again. “I can’t believe you remembered that.” She leans her face against his. “You know, I would have been happy with just the pizza.”

He laughs and squeezes her hand affectionately. “I know,” he says sincerely.

===

_It was the bad year when the bar was going under. The bar always had its ups and downs but that year had been particularly bad. It was the longest stretch the bar had ever spent going into the red that Nick could remember. They just weren’t able to turn it around. They barely had enough money to keep the lights on and he had to lay off most of the staff. At the end, it came down to just him and Schmidt and one or two other bartenders they kept on call on the off chance they ever had a busy night, college kids that were able to come in sporadically whenever there was a chance for extra pocket money. They were up to their eyeballs in debt, but Nick remembered the early years when they had been here before and he thought they could weather it again. They just had to wait it out. He thought maybe he could convince the bank to give them an extension on their loan or ask the credit card companies for just a little more time to pay off their bills like all the other times they had come up a little short before. But every morning he had to come in and add to the ever-growing stack of overdue bills sitting on his desk in the back office stamped with 'past due' and 'final notice' in red ink and read the increasingly threatening letters from the collection agencies and he knew the answer was "probably not." So Nick knew it was bad but it didn’t hit him just how bad until Schmidt left._

\---

_One night after closing, Schmidt sat him down in the back office and said someone had offered him a full-time job as a marketing associate at some firm on the other side of the city. “I…I think I want to take it,” Schmidt said hesitantly, looking down at the desk away from him. He took in a breath and looked up directly into his eyes. “What do you think, Nick?” he asked cautiously._

_Nick’s mind went through a conflict of emotions while he kept his face carefully neutral. He could read between the lines. Schmidt was out. It shouldn’t have blindsided him the way things had been going lately, but it still felt like a betrayal. His first impulse was anger. 'We were supposed to be 50/50 partners in this forever, Schmidty,' Nick wanted to say, but he knew that wasn't being fair to Schmidt. Schmidt had been there since the beginning, stuck by him through pretty much everything. Schmidt was always imminently practical, much better at separating the business from the rest of his life the way Nick never could. They both had young kids; they had to come first before everything else. Schmidt would only have made this choice if he thought it was what was best for his family. It hit him that Schmidt would never bail on him unless things were really bad. Schmidt’s faith in him was unwavering but it had been shaken and that shook Nick’s faith in himself. Schmidt didn’t think he could make it. And if he didn’t have Schmidt’s vote of confidence, he really couldn’t._

_Sitting there in the back office across from Schmidt, Nick could suddenly picture their future so clearly from where they currently were. The bar was going to drown them both. Schmidt knew he could never convince Nick to abandon the bar. They were partners but the bar wasn't ingrained into Schmidt the way it was ingrained into him. Schmidt knew this was his dream, the thing he bled out for that was secondary only to Jess and the kids. Schmidt could leave it behind, but he knew Nick couldn't. Nick didn't know when to quit. So Schmidt went behind his back and did this, but Schmidt was still his best friend and he still needed Nick’s blessing to go through with it. If Nick told him not to do it, if he asked him to stay, Schmidt would stay by his side until the bitter end. This wasn’t a betrayal. This was the last lifeboat. And if it was the last lifeboat, it was Nick’s job to make sure Schmidt got on it. If he was drowning, he wasn't going to drag Schmidt down right along with him. At least this way one of them would make it out. He swallowed everything down._

_“No hard feelings, man,” Nick said pasting on a smile. “We had a good run.”_

_Schmidt breathed out a sigh of relief and gave Nick a grateful smile in return. He signed over his portion of the bar making Nick sole owner._

\---

_After Schmidt left, Nick walked back into the bar, his bar now instead of their bar, and sat down on one of the stools at the counter. He just sat there for half an hour by himself looking out into the darkened bar and letting that harsh reality sink in. He was the only one left._

\---

_He knew it was over but he still got up every morning and went to the bar even if there wasn’t much to do but sit around hoping beyond hope for more customers that day, for it to be just that little bit better than the day before so he could keep his head above water, even though he already knew he was so deep in the ocean it didn’t even matter anymore. He was thinking about how to tell Jess he had to sell the bar. He had already drained his retirement fund to keep the bar going another few months and the only other option was to start dipping into Jess’s retirement fund or the kids’ college funds and he wasn’t about to do that. He was trying to put all that turmoil aside because they were taking that trip to New York this weekend with Schmidt and Cece to celebrate his and Jess’s wedding anniversary. That was always his favorite day and it still was despite everything else going on in his life._

_Schmidt had invited him and Jess to take the trip with him and Cece because he said they hadn’t taken a roadtrip together, just the four of them, in years since before the kids were born. But Nick knew it was because Schmidt knew he couldn’t really afford to do anything fancy for Jess this year on their anniversary._

_“This isn’t because of the bar, right, Schmidt?” he had asked him. “I told you that you don’t have to feel guilty about that. I know it was just business.”_

_“This isn’t because of the bar, Nick. It’s because I want to take my best friend and his wife to see one of the greatest cities on Earth.”_

_“You’d do this for me, if I couldn’t do this for my Cece,” Schmidt adds quietly._

_He would. He knows he would. And if this were the other way around, he knows he would have wanted Schmidt to accept it as the gift it was, no strings attached, even though they both know it’s hard for a guy to swallow his pride and accept help from another guy, even if they are best friends. It's hard not to keep track of everything on a scoreboard of debts to be repaid in a friendship, but this is what they do for each other because they’re brothers and they both love the women in their lives beyond reason. So Nick sighs and wraps Schmidt in a bear hug and lets Schmidt do him this huge favor he can probably never repay him for so that his wife can have the nice anniversary she deserves. “Thanks, Schmidt,” he says with sincere gratitude. Those simple words are all Schmidt needs from him to repay the debt._

\---

_It was really generous of Schmidt to do this but Nick couldn’t help feeling ashamed that he was approaching his 40s and Schmidt was still bailing him out like he did in his 20s. Schmidt paid for everything. The fancy hotel and all the fancy restaurants they went to and the tickets to Jess’s favorite Broadway show. He even took them shopping on 5th Avenue so Jess could splurge on a pretty new dress to wear out on the town. Nick smiled when he saw that Jess had bought one in red because she knew that was his favorite color on her. She was radiant and smiling all weekend, excited to explore the city. It always made him happy seeing her happy. He tried to enjoy the trip but he couldn't help thinking about everything waiting for him back home._

_He hadn't told her about the bar yet. She didn't even know that Schmidt had quit the bar and they were no longer partners. She believed Schmidt when he told her he had been planning this trip for them all year. Out of respect for him and their friendship, Schmidt was trying to cover for him and protect his dignity because Schmidt knew it would take him time to work up to telling Jess in exactly the right way. He never lied to Jess. He always told her everything and he was keeping this huge secret from her. It wasn't really a secret because he was going to tell her, but it was a lie. Jess never asked him directly about the bar so no traitorous words had ever left his mouth describing a false but rosy picture of their future, but still a lie. He tried to convince himself that it was a lie for a good reason. It was a lie of omission so she could be happy a little bit longer and still look at him the way she's looking at him now, like he's a guy who deserves that utter devotion in her gaze. He was a terrible liar but he would learn how to be a good one for her just for this weekend, lie with every part of himself so that his wife could still have a good husband by her side for their anniversary, even if he no longer existed._

\---

_It was their last night in New York. He was curled up around her after making love to her in their hotel room. She was tucked against his side with his arm around her and her head resting on his chest. He was trying to focus on the feeling of being blissed out, the way he usually was after being physically intimate with her, but he couldn’t help thinking about the bad news he still had to tell her when they got back home. He thought he had done a pretty good job keeping all of those bad feelings locked away within himself all weekend and pretending to act normal. He pretended they were playing make-believe so it didn't feel like a lie. He always was good at playing make-believe. Schmidt had crammed their schedule full of activities so as long as they kept moving, he could avoid thinking about all the badness that awaited him and Jess in the future._

_But now that he was lying here next to her and it was quiet and still, he could no longer ignore that undercurrent of anxiety that had been running through him all weekend. He could feel it pressing against his skin, all his secrets struggling to get out and hurt them, hurt Jess. He was trying to shove the bad feelings back down inside of himself and force himself to go to sleep but he just ended up staring at the ceiling, his mind trying and failing to deconstruct everything that had gone so wrong in his life, trying to identify all the choices he had made that he thought were good choices but were really bad choices in disguise, everything that had led him up to this moment where he had to break his wife's heart. Jess's eyes were closed but he could tell she wasn't really asleep yet by the way she was breathing. Maybe she was pretending too. Maybe she had noticed something was off about him, something that kept him a little distant from her and not fully present the way he usually was when they were together like this. She hadn’t asked him what was wrong though. Jess usually notices everything but maybe the busy weekend Schmidt had planned for them had distracted her. He hoped it had. If she asked him what was wrong directly, he knew he would fold like a cheap card table and he would have to tell her everything and ruin their anniversary. He closed his eyes. 'Don't ask me, Jess,' he prayed to her. 'Please, don't ask me, honey.' He wanted her to be happy for at least one more weekend, to let her have a few more hours of married bliss before he had to crush her heart._

_She opened her eyes and looked up into his face for several long minutes, observing him. His eyes were closed but he could feel the weight of her gaze on him. “Let’s go out, Nick,” she said to him suddenly._

_He looked over at the clock sitting on the nightstand. Midnight. They had to be up soon to catch their flight back home._

_Sometimes Jess gets in these moods and gets the urge to do something crazy. It usually leads somewhere good though so he humors her. He smiles at her sleepily, “Where do you want to go, Jess?” he asked her._

_“Just out,” she said. “Just somewhere alone with my husband to celebrate our anniversary.”_

_He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. If that’s what his wife wants on their anniversary, that’s what he’s going to give her._

_“Sure, honey, let’s go out.”_

\---

_So they get all dressed up and walk through the neighborhoods of New York at night: Greenwich Village, SoHo, Tribeca, Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy. He’s happy just walking around with her holding her hand even if they can’t afford to do anything really spectacular. It occurs to him that this is probably the closest he’s ever going to get to being able to take her to any of these places. Schmidt might be able to spring for a few more of these fancy vacations for them but he’ll probably never be able to take her to any of these places on his own. That hits him hard in the gut and makes him feel really depressed but he just tries to enjoy tonight for what it is: a respite from the rest of his life where he can pretend he’s a guy that can give his wife the entire world._

\---

_They get pizza and gelato at the waterfront. He wished he could take her into one of those fancy Italian restaurants they walked past but at least the food is still good even if they do eat it on paper plates with plastic silverware. They’re sitting on a bench side by side overlooking the water with the entire Manhattan skyline before them lighting up the night sky. He takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over her shoulders even though she doesn't ask him to because he knows she always gets cold when they walk outside at night and she only brought her thin wrap. She smiles at the gesture and reaches over to hold his hand. Jess seems really happy and he keeps thinking she shouldn’t be because they’ve been married for years and this is still all he can give her. He let her down again. He wasn’t a good husband or a good father, couldn’t get his shit together and provide for his family, couldn’t give them the life they deserved. He couldn’t even afford to take his wife out on their wedding anniversary._

 _He had been waiting until after they got home to tell her the bad news, but sitting there with the fake counterfeit happiness he had given her tainting the most sacred of days on which she had become his wife, he just couldn't keep it inside anymore so he had to blurt it out and ruin their anniversary._

_“I have to sell the bar, Jess,” he said. He's not looking at her but out across the water. "Schmidt quit. He had to quit and get another job. We're broke. The bar is broke. We can't make it another year."_

_Those bitter words hang in the air between them and he wished he could take them back, but there it was. The entire ugly truth. She touches his cheek and he turns his face to look directly at her even though he doesn’t want to and it’s really hard for him to look at her in that moment. Her eyes are kind and understanding though, just like he knew they would be, just like he doesn’t deserve._

_“I’m sorry, Jess,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry I ruined our anniversary and I’m sorry I’m not a good husband and…I’m just sorry for everything.”_

_“You didn’t ruin our anniversary, Nick. And you’re a good husband who loves me and has given me a great life. You don’t have to be sorry for anything.”_

_Jess usually doesn’t get involved in the business at the bar because she trusts him and she knows how important it was to him to show her he could do this on his own but she can see that he’s drowning and he needs her help. “How long?” she asks him._

_“Three months.” She sees the tension he’s been holding in his body all this time from trying to protect her from this truth, the grimness passing behind his eyes as he thinks about the future. “Three months, if we’re lucky.”_

_“Well, we’ll just have to be very lucky then,” she says. “Don’t sell the bar, Nick. Use the money in the rainy day fund. Take that money and give it three more months.”_

_“I can’t use that money, Jess. That’s the money for you and the kids. What if something happens and you need that money?”_

_“Nothing is going to happen, Nick. This is it. This is our rainy day. Don’t sell the bar.”_

_He loves that bar and he doesn’t want to sell it. He thinks he has to so he can save his family, but he looks into Jess’s eyes and he knows she loves it too. That’s where they grew up together. Every single inch holds a special memory of them, of their friends, of their whole life together. She believes in him to save it and even though he thinks he can’t, he’ll still try for her because she still wants to hold onto that dream._

_“Okay, Jess,” he breathes out. “Three more months.”_

_He looks out across the water again. “You think next year will be better, Jess?” he asks her._

_“Next year will be better,” she says with conviction._

_“I wish I could have taken you somewhere really good for our anniversary, but I still can’t even afford a damn hotel room in Mexico,” he says ruefully._

_“As long as we spend our anniversary together, it’s a good anniversary,” she says. She puts her head on his shoulder. “One day you’ll get us to all those places. We’ll spend our anniversary in Italy in five years. I’m sure of it.”_

_“Well…maybe Little Italy, not big Italy,” he responds back._

_“You’ll take us to big Italy someday, but Little Italy is good too.” She kisses his cheek._

_It’s a nice dream to have. He knows she believes in it wholeheartedly because she’s Jess and even today on the darkest of days when her husband just told her they have to give up on a dream he spent almost a decade pouring his blood and sweat and tears into she can still see a world that is pure and good, a future where they’re happy together._

_“Was it a good anniversary for you this year, Jess?”_

_“It was. Every year we grow older together is better than the year before.”_

_He smiles at her. “What was your favorite part?”_

_He expects her to tell him about all the fancy stuff in New York they were able to do this weekend, but instead she says, “Here. Right now.”_

_“Yeah?” he says in surprise._

_“Yeah,” she says sincerely. “The happiest I’ve been the entire trip is right now.” He looks into her eyes and knows that it’s true._

_He squeezes her hand. “Me too.” It’s true because he doesn’t have the weight of the bar hanging onto him like it has been the entire trip. Jess is here helping him shoulder that burden because she’s a good wife and that’s what she always does. He doesn’t know if he can save the bar, but just knowing that Jess believes he can, even if he can’t, makes him feel better. He’s just out here sharing the night with his wife and that always makes him happy no matter where they are._

\---

_When they get back home he tries to give it three more months like he promised Jess, even though it’s hard and most days it feels like he's just waiting for the inevitable. There isn’t much work to do so he mainly just stands behind the bar and cleans glasses all day or sits in the back office and pretends to be busy. He looks at job listings and tries to imagine himself starting over and doing something else. He can’t, not really. Everything he ever wanted is right here. He had thought this was where he was going to be for the rest of his life, that he had finally been able to create something permanent and good for his family. Maybe one of the kids would have taken it over eventually if they wanted to, and if they didn't, he would have found some other bright, young kid to gradually take it over for him, some youngish guy or gal who really cared about creating some place iconic and classic in a sea of fad bars, an old-school place where the bartenders knew everything there was to know about mixing a good drink and could look at you and know exactly what kind of drink you wanted before you even sat down at the bar. He had thought he would always be able to go downtown and walk into a place that he could call his. His bar. He sighs to himself. He thinks when you’re an adult, especially when you have a wife and kids, you can’t really afford to dream the way you did when you were young and single. His family matters more to him than some dumb dream he had once about owning his own bar and he’d sell his own dreams in a heartbeat if it meant being able to give them the kind of life they deserved. Every second he is there and not working, he thinks about the bar burning through the money from the rainy day fund that was supposed to be for Jess and the kids and he hates himself. But he gives it three more months because he promised her he would._

\---

_One day, Schmidt comes into the bar in the middle of the afternoon. It’s unusual because Schmidt’s office is all the way on the other side of town so he can’t just drop in for a drink whenever he feels like it. Schmidt is breathing hard like he ran all the way here and Nick’s heart starts racing imagining all the bad possibilities. He comes out from behind the bar. “What’s wrong, Schmidt? Did something happen with Cece? With Jacob and Olivia?”_

_Schmidt is still trying to catch his breath but he manages to get out, “Sorry for the big entrance. Cece and the kids are fine. I just had to show you this.” He reaches into his interior suit jacket pocket and pulls out a folded article ripped from some magazine._

_Nick takes the article from him and unfolds it. He sees a photo of the bar with a long review about how it’s the most underrated bar in the city. It’s a nice article, a good pick-me-up, especially today when he’s two months into his three months promise before he has to give up the bar. Maybe he’ll frame it and keep it in his office at home so he'll always have something to remember the bar by after he sells it. Nick smiles at Schmidt. “Thanks for this, but you didn’t have to come all the way out here. You want me to make you an old-fashioned before you have to go back to work?” he says, heading back behind the bar._

_Schmidt can see Nick doesn’t really get it. He grabs onto Nick’s arm. “Look at who wrote the article. That’s one of the top bar critics in the city. He rescues bars. Every single bar he writes about blows up just because he says it’s good. This is going to save the bar, Nick.”_

_Nick stands there in disbelief just staring at Schmidt for several long minutes trying to process that information. It’s kind of embarrassing but when it finally makes it in, he gets all choked up. He knows he is totally going to cry in front of Schmidt, but he thinks if there is one valid reason for a guy to be crying in the middle of the afternoon in front of his best friend, having a miracle save the bar you own is probably it. Then it’s really okay to cry because Schmidt is crying too. Schmidt wraps him in a bear hug. “I’m glad you didn’t sell the bar, Nick. You saved it. I’m sorry I left you to run it all by yourself. You needed me here.”_

_Nick shakes his head. “Jess did. She saved it. You were right to leave, Schmidt. I didn’t think we were going to make it either. I was going to sell the bar after we came back from New York but Jess told me not to. I don’t know how she knew that things were going to turn around but she did.”_

_“Go home and tell Jess, Nick. Tell her the good news. I can hold things down here for a while until you come back.”_

_So he does, he is able to go home and tell his wife who believed in the impossible that they’re going to be able to save the bar. He spins her around and hugs her to him. “I love you, honey. Thanks for believing in me. I don’t know how you knew any of this was going to happen, but I’m glad you’re the smart one in this relationship.”_

_“I love you too, Nick. I know my husband,” she says. “This was you. You just needed someone to help you see it.”_

_“Not just anyone, Jess. I needed to hear it from you.”_

\---

_In a couple of weeks, things do turn around and business picks up again. Slowly, they start digging their way out of the hole. He is able to rehire back most of the staff. The bar goes back into the black after another six months. He breathes out a sigh of relief when he is able to put all the money back into the rainy day fund (with interest). Jess saved the bar so he thinks it’s only right that he makes good on her other prediction to get them to Italy in five years too. He goes to the bank and opens up a new savings account to start saving up his pennies._

===

"I can't believe you remember any of that. That was years ago."

“Of course I remember that, Jess. It was one of those times when I knew I married the right person. I knew I loved you practically from the moment you walked through the door and into my life, but I think it’s easy to say you love someone when your life is easy. The words always sound nice whether you mean them or not. I just don’t think you can really know that you love someone until your life is hard. But you loved me, Jess. You loved me through it all. So when I say I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I never have to think about it.” 

"I've been saving up for this for years ever since you saved the bar. I want you to have everything, Jess, and now I can actually give it to you. I want to go to Italy and renew our vows."

She presses her hand to his heart and looks into his eyes. “I already have everything, Nick. I love it because it’s with you.” 

She’s suddenly shy again. “I actually got you something too.”

She pulls a box out from under the bed, neatly wrapped in elegant silver giftwrap with a fancy gold bow. "I can't one-up Italy though...Now I'm kind of embarrassed to give it to you."

He leans into her to press a kiss to her lips. "Hey, don’t talk about my wife that way. I love everything my darling wife gives me."

He undoes the bow and tears open the wrapping paper. He lifts up the cover of the box. Sitting inside is a hardback novel with _The Pepperwood Chronicles_ written across the cover in fancy gold lettering. It's an anthology of all the Julius Pepperwood stories he's written over the years neatly printed and bound as an actual book. He flips through it. He laughs when he sees that she even included ‘Z is for Zombie’ as a prologue. “Had to,” she said. “That’s the one that started it all. It’s a classic.” She even did hand-drawn illustrations for every chapter. _Julius Pepperwood in his awesome trenchcoat with his trusty Girl Friday Jessica Night always close by his side._

"I love it, Jess," he says, sincerely touched. No one else really knows about it. He doesn’t have any delusions about becoming some famous author but he still writes. It’s something he does just for Jess and himself, something private they share. To anyone else it's probably just a collection of badly written stories, but she knows it's the story of them. He’s gotten a lot better over the years at telling them with her help.

He holds his arm out for her so she can tuck herself back against his side. She rests her head on his shoulder as they look through the book together, reliving the stories of them. 

"Pepperwood always saves her, doesn't he?" she asks him.

He kisses her temple. "Well, he has to,” he murmurs to her. “Because she saves him right back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hat tip to the film "Pretty Woman" for the ending. The plot of that movie is problematic but the chemistry between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere saves it. All the problems of that movie aside, I do still like the ending of it.


End file.
